Dancing in the Dark
by Ryvian
Summary: What if Zack had survived the encounter with Shinra and he and Cloud had made it to Midgar?
1. This Gun's For Hire

_I've had this idea in my head for a few months. This is going to be my largest-scale fanfic yet; probably spanning upwards of 30 chapters. I hope you enjoy it and I appreciate all comments, positive or negative. :)_**  
**

**  
This Gun's For Hire**

Zack leaned back against the run down building and exhaled a stream of gray smoke into the heavy night air with a sigh.

"Fuck," he muttered, rubbing his shoulder. This humidity made it ache where the sniper bullet had torn through nerves and bone. He supposed it always would.

He threw the cigarette – his last cigarette, and he couldn't afford to buy any more - on the ground, flattened it with the toe of his boot and strode into the tiny bar. He'd heard the place mentioned on the streets and her name…Tifa.

He wasn't even sure why he'd come and he wondered if it had been a good idea, as he seated himself at the end of the bar farthest away from the door, and removed the sunglasses he wore to hide the inhuman glow in his eyes.

The bar was mostly empty, seeing as it was just a few minutes before closing time and Tifa was behind the bar washing glasses. She didn't look much different than the last time he'd seen her, though she obviously looked older.

"Hey, babe," he said, "D'ya s'pose I could get a drink down here?"

She set the glass she'd been cleaning down and turned to him, looking like she wanted to beat the crap out of him. He was used to looks like that, so it didn't really phase him.

"Could you…" she started to say, frustration in her voice, but stopped when she saw him.

She walked over to him, slowly, brows furrowed. "…Zack?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "In the flesh."

She looked around, awkwardly and noticed some of the patrons watching them, then looked pointedly at the clock on the wall.

"Closing time!" she shouted.

The patrons grumbled and someone shouted something about it not being 2AM yet.

She glared at them. "I said it's closing time!"

He was amazed at how fast the bar emptied.

Tifa's gaze softened when she looked at him. He wasn't surprised, since he was sure he looked like hell compared to how he'd looked last time she'd seen him.

"Can I get you something?" she asked, softly.

"Give me the strongest thing you got."

"You got it," she said, reaching behind the bar for a glass.

Zack watched her as she poured his drink, trying to think of something to say. He felt awkward seeing someone he hadn't seen in years, someone who had basically said she hated him during their last meeting, someone who he'd essentially been responsible for injuring.

"You…look good," he said, at last, conscious of how idiotic that sounded.

Tifa set his drink down in front of him and smiled a little. "I wish I could say the same for you."

Zack chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, well, it's been a rough few years…"

"What happened to you?"

Zack downed half the glass, relishing the burning feeling of the alcohol as it ran down in throat. He coughed to clear his throat and then told her everything. How he and Cloud had woken up in the basement of the Shinra mansion and had become test subjects in another of Hojo's twisted experiments. He told her of their escape and the year they spent on the run from Shinra, about how he'd nearly been killed, but by the grace of some god had managed to get out in time.

Tifa stared at him for a moment after he finished, shock on her face.

"Is he…?" she said, finally, sounding as if she was afraid of what his answer would be.

Zack didn't even pretend not to know what she was asking. He downed the rest of his drink with a grimace in the hopes that it would ease the pain the thought of…him always elicited. It didn't.

"Yes," he answered, "If he wasn't, I wouldn't be here."

"Did you…" Tifa shook her head. "Nevermind. Talking about it must be hard for you."

"Heh…" Zack said, looking down at his glass, "Understatement of the year…"

"I'm sorry," Tifa said. She placed a gentle hand on his arm.

He forced himself to smile and looked up at her. "Don't worry about it."

"You said Cloud was here with you," Tifa said, withdrawing her hand. "Where is he?"

"I left him with a…friend."

-----

She smelled like flowers.

…_Cloud._

Everyone kept calling him that. Was that his name? He couldn't remember.

She touched him on his arm. Her touch was gentle, like…

_You should find yourself a nice girl._

"M..mother…?"

She laughed and suddenly he felt warm. He could feel her all around him.

_It's time for you to come home._

Home? Where was that? Nibel…heim? Nibelheim…

_My family! My hometown! Give them back!_

Fire.

Blood.

Cold steel.

Laughter. Bitter, insane laughter.

Screaming…He was screaming and he couldn't stop…

He felt her arms around him and the warmth enveloped him.

_It's alright, Cloud. You don't have to be afraid anymore. Come back now. Zack is waiting for you._

"Za..ck…?"

A smiling face.

_So, you wanna be a SOLDIER?_

Warm laughter.

_You should see the look on your face!_

Selfless friendship.

_I'd never leave you behind._

"Zack…"

And he came to himself with a jolt.

He groaned. His head hurt, his body hurt, everything hurt.

"Cloud?"

He realized that someone was holding him. He moved away and turned.

"Aeris?" He remembered her vaguely from the few times he'd seen her, but why was she here?

He looked around. A church? Her church…Why was he here?

She smiled and threw her arms around him. "You're back!"

Cloud felt his face get hot. What in the world was going on? He was confused, very confused.

-----

"So that's the state of things," Zack said, "The kid's fucked up and I'm poor as dirt. This mercenary thing isn't working out too well…"

He'd thought it would've been easy. Lots of people had odd jobs that need doing, right? Wrong. He'd only had 1 job since they arrived and it wasn't enough to even buy food for a week.

"I may have a job for you." Tifa said.

Zack raised an eyebrow. "What kind of job?"

"We're trying to get back at Shinra for what they've done to this planet and to keep them from doing more harm," Tifa said.

"Who's 'we'?"

"We call ourselves AVALANCHE," Tifa explained, eyes lighting up with what looked like pride.

AVALANCHE. He'd heard about them on the news. They'd blown up one of the reactors the week before.

"You want me to become a terrorist."

"We're not terrorists!"

It would be great irony, the former second-in-command of Shinra's most elite joining a group that was against everything Shinra stood for. He'd always appreciated irony.

"I'll do it."


	2. Getting Nowhere

**Chapter 02: Getting Nowhere**

"I'm back!" Zack announced, stepping into the church, "Sorry it took so long. I…"

He looked toward the flowers and words failed him. Cloud was sitting next to Aeris and he was _talking to her_. And then Cloud looked over at him; his eyes were clear and bright.

"Zack?"

His voice…Cloud had just spoken to him, had just acknowledged that he was there and he recognized him.

Zack stood there frozen for a few moments before his brain finally kicked in and told him that this was real; it wasn't some crazy dream, and he ran to Cloud, threw himself down in front of him and pulled him into a tight hug.

He clung to Cloud and sobbed, all the fear, all the loneliness, all the guilt, everything he'd felt in the past year pouring out of him.

"Fucking hell…" he said, his voice thick with his tears.

"Zack…?" Cloud said, softly, sounding confused and a little scared.

Zack released him, mentally kicking himself. He'd probably just scared the crap out of the kid with that display.

He gulped and tried to get himself back under control.

"…Are you alright?" Cloud asked, concern written all over his face.

"I'm fucking fabulous, kid," Zack said, grinning.

"I'm not a kid," Cloud protested, just as he always had when Zack called him that.

Zack took a good look at Cloud. He was a hell of a lot shorter than Zack still, but he wasn't the skinny, fragile-looking kid he'd been in their Shinra days. He was built like a SOLDIER now.

"No, I guess you're not," Zack admitted. He'd have to keep telling himself that Cloud wasn't 16 anymore.

He felt Aeris' hand on his own and looked at her to see her smiling back at him, looking a little tired.

"Aer, did you do this?" he said.

She nodded. "It was tearing you up inside," she said, as if that were enough explanation.

"You're unbelievable," Zack said, completely awed by her, just as he had been so many years ago when he'd first met her. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "You really are an angel."

Aeris laughed. "We've already been through that."

She pulled her hand away and stood. "Go home. It's late."

Zack realized then that it must have been at least 3:30, and how tired he was.

He stood and offered his hand to Cloud. "Come on, kiddo. Let's go home."

-----

_Sephiroth was standing there, on the edge of the bluff, the moonlight reflecting off him. He looked like some kind of angel._

_Zack smiled and called out to him._

_Sephiroth turned and Zack saw that he was covered in blood. It was dripping from his hands and his sword with sickening splattering sounds, forming repugnant pools at his feet. _

_Suddenly, the landscape was nothing but flames. He could feel the heat pressing in on him, offering him no hope of escape._

_And Sephiroth laughed._

Zack snapped awake, panting, covered in cold sweat. He pushed back the covers and sat up, trying to forget the remnants of the dream. That was at least the tenth time he'd had a nightmare like that this week.

His chest was tight and his eyes burned.

"Fuck…" he said, running a hand through his hair. He wasn't sure how much longer he could take this.

He looked next to him in the bed and saw that Cloud was sleeping peacefully. He'd started sharing a bed with the younger man partly because it was all he could afford and partly because he wanted to keep an eye on him. Sometimes it made him feel better just to know that Cloud was there, especially now that Cloud was there mentally as well.

He got out of bed with a sigh that turned into a gasp as his bare feet hit the cold wooden floor, and walked through the doorway into the small kitchen.

He grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and leaned back against the counter, popping the top off with his thumb.

_Damn it, Sephiroth… _he thought, taking a swig. _Why do you keep tormenting me?_

He chugged half the bottle then sank down to sit on the floor and rested his forehead on his knee. When would the searing pain he felt at the thought of his former friend fade? It had been nearly five fucking years, and yet it still hurt like it was yesterday.

Tears threatened to fall, and he squeezed his eyes shut against him. What the hell had he become? Now he was nothing more than a ghost of the cheerful, vibrant youth he'd once been. He was a man haunted so by the specters of his past that he couldn't move on with his life.

Despite his attempt to stop them, the tears fell anyway and he sat there crying on the dusty kitchen floor, a half empty bottle clutched in his hand, like some pathetic slum drunk.

"Zack?"

Zack jumped and looked up to see Cloud standing in the doorway. He'd been so absorbed in his grief that he hadn't even heard his friend coming.

"What's wrong…?" Cloud asked.

"More like what isn't wrong…" he said, before he thought.

Cloud looked confused and worried. Probably because he'd only seen Zack in such a state once, right after he'd come back from Wutai and it was so different from what he was used to.

"Heh. Sorry…" Zack said, and tried force himself to be cheerful.

Cloud came over and sat down beside him. "It's about…him, isn't it?"

Zack stared down at his lap. "I couldn't save him…Even after everything I did, everything I said…No matter how good of a friend I was…"

"I couldn't keep him from doing those horrible things to you…your hometown…all the people you knew…"

"And this," Zack gestured vaguely. "This is what I get for it…"

"It's not your fault," Cloud said, placing a hand on Zack's shoulder. "You didn't know that was gonna happen."

Zack sighed. Cloud didn't understand what it felt like to see your best friend go insane right before your eyes, didn't understand the pain and guilt that accompanied such an experience.

Zack sniffed and dried his eyes. "Don't worry 'bout me," he said with a valiant attempt at a smile, "I'll be alright."

Cloud didn't look convinced.

Zack stood. "C'mon. Let's go back to bed."

Cloud nodded and they both went back to the bedroom.

-----

Zack waited until Cloud had fallen asleep, then he slipped on his boots, jacket, and sunglasses and stepped out into the neon-lit night. Going for a walk had always helped him sort out his thoughts.

There weren't many people out on the streets, given the fact that it was early in the morning. Zack was glad for that, because the quiet helped him to relax.

His walk took him to Aeris' church and he went inside, intending to sit on the front pew beside the flowers, just as he used to after a hard day at work. He hadn't taken more than one step past the doorway, when his gaze fell on the flowerbed.

What he saw there, made his blood run cold and his heart feel like it had turned to lead. There, standing in the middle of the flowers, head bowed, silver hair obscuring his face, was Sephiroth.

He took a few tentative steps down the aisle. "Sephiroth?"

Sephiroth looked up at him and in the next instant, he was gone.

_What the hell?!_

Zack ran to the front of the church, but there was no sign of Sephiroth. There was, however, a black-cloaked man lying there.

Zack bent down for a closer look and really wished he hadn't. The man's face was burnt beyond recognition, his eyes were nothing more than bloody sockets and blood was running from his ears and the corners of his mouth.

And on his arm, almost completely obscured by coagulated blood was the number 37.


End file.
